Hi! I hope you had a good holiday. I hope you HAD a holiday. Or at least a few days off from wherever you toil.

What will 2010 bring? 2009 was a little scary, to be honest. Worked dried up for most of the illustrators that I know. I especially noticed a lag in the summer. It seems to have bounced back, but who can tell? Illustration DID die over 60 years ago, so.

-I have a small book coming out this year. It’s true! Indoor Voice will be published by Drawn and Quarterly (dates forthcoming). I consider it a bit of a blog extension or companion to Gilded Lilies (2006). A compilation of things. You will hear more about it later! And yes, I am working on getting a longer, narrative work going. Fingers crossed.

-Skim goes on. Foreign translations are forthcoming in Portuguese and Dutch. Nutso…

-Speaking of! Right-wingers officially hate Skim! Read about it here!

-I’m teaching the 2nd semester of the Drawing for Cartoonists class at SVA. I will be switching to the Illustration department in the Fall.

-I am speaking with Gabrielle Bell and Jessica Abel later this month at the Brooklyn Public Library. Just a tiny thing on Brooklyn comickers. Deets: Jan 28, 7pm, Brooklyn Public Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Dweck Centre (lower level).

-Half World, the totally awesome book by Hiromi Goto, will be released April 1 in the US (Viking/Penguin). I did the illustrations for it. The book is already available in Canada.

That’s all I can think of now. Bye!

I was charged with making the award plaques for this year’s NYTimes Best Illustrated Books list (see post below). Here’s the illustration I did. I was pretty nervous to see the plaques handed out to the winners. Here are people who KNOW illustration and –yipes– will probably be putting the thing on their wall to look at, you know, forever.

(Taeeun Yoo, from Only a Witch Can Fly)

I had the pleasure of judging this year’s New York Times Best Illustrated Books, along with writer Adam Gopnik (!) and librarian Lisa Von Drasek. The process basically involved being sequestered in a room for 8 hours (with a lovely 3-course lunch in between), hashing through many hundreds, if not thousands, of children’s books.

Here are the books we chose. Here is Adam Gopnik talking about the process.

It was an extremely interesting day. Obviously, my exposure to children’s books is almost solely from an illustrator’s perspective. I learned so much from Adam and Lisa in terms of the “other side” of reading/evaluating an illustrated book.

I blurbed. For some reason this seems blog-worthy.

I’m really happy D&Q is publishing gekiga (dramatic, serious comics, for lack of a more informed term). I was surprised to hear Yoshihiro Tasumi say that gekiga is not popular in Japan. It’s nice to know it’s found a following here. Red Snow is the latest venture.

And this is what I think of it.

What I REALLY want to see is a book of Yoshiharu Tsuge’s, but apparently he doesn’t let the stuff be translated/republished. Read about his work here, read “Screw-Style” via scans here (scroll down a bit).

SKIM has been included in this year’s Best American Comics anthology. Thanks Jessica Abel, Matt Madden and guest editor Charles Burns. Wow–a huge honor to be asked to contribute.

More info, including a list of other contributors, is here.

Hope Larson points out (via Twitter) that Anne of GG seems to be the first novel to explore pertinent YA issues–I think she may be on to something! In this chapter, Anne confronts bullying, peer pressure, and spirituality.

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables

Sooo, a lot of stuff happened while I was away? Poor MJ. We were “SHAMON!!”ing all weekend.

First off, thanks to the Illustration Academy for inviting me and Sam down to Sarasota. We always enjoy ourselves immensely.

Second, Skim has won an another award! The Canadian Booksellers “Libris” prize, for Book Design of the Year. Thanks to Michael Solomon at Groundwood, who made the design happen on the book. Readers of the North American version will have hopefully notice some of the easter eggs in the design (hint: take off the dust jacket).

Here’s Farrah for good measure:

We are back from Skim Tour España 2009.

Thank-you to Ediciones La Cúpula, our Spanish publisher, for doing a great job on the production and promotion of the book. I assure you, Barcelona citizens will be quite sick of us in the next month or so when our newspaper interviews/tv/radio spots come out, such was the blitz. A super special thank-you to Montserrat Terrones, who very graciously toured us around the city. I shall miss the coffee but not the omnipresent cigarette smoke.

The Salón del Cómic de Barcelona was good but very different from North American comics festivals (at least the ones that I’ve been to). I was surprised to see alternative comics freely mixing with erotica, manga (LOTS of manga), cosplayers, and children’s fare. And videogames and fantasy stuff and knick-knacks. And drinking.

I met lots of nice people, including some fellow illustrators! I will say, however, that I was not terribly happy about some of the signing culture over there. I got the feeling there was a bit of a sense of entitlement amongst some of the fair attendees… that simply because you are sitting there with a pen you can be asked to draw pictures in sketchbooks and loose paper. Many of the people who asked for drawings didn’t even know who I was. I am more than happy to spend some time creating a nice picture in a book or for an illustration fan that comes and visits me, but a random person who wants a “free drawing”? Very irritating.

Anyhow, enough griping. Back to work!